Saudi Arabia’s Road to World Cup 2034 Is Paved with Dead Workers and Child Labour
This week marks the World Day Against Child Labour — a moment meant to raise global awareness of the exploitation of children. Yet in Saudi Arabia, the children of migrant workers are being pushed further into poverty and forced labour, as the world, including FIFA, looks the other way.
One case speaks volumes. In March 2025, Muhammad Arshad, a Pakistani construction worker, fell to his death while working on Aramco Stadium in Al Khobar — a venue being built for the 2034 FIFA World Cup. He left behind three young children. No investigation was conducted. No compensation was paid. His death, like so many others, was recorded as “natural causes” — a term often used to cover up hazardous working conditions and deny responsibility.
This isn’t an isolated tragedy. It’s part of a pattern. Families who lose their only provider are left with nothing. Many are forced to send their children to work just to survive. The right to an education is stripped from them — not by poverty alone, but by a system that refuses to recognise their loss or provide justice.
FIFA has seen this before. It happened in Qatar ahead of the 2022 World Cup. Thousands of unexplained migrant worker deaths. Empty promises of reform. Acknowledged responsibility, but no action. Now the same story is unfolding again — and this time in Saudi Arabia, where repression, forced labour, and wage theft remain widespread and unaccounted for.
By awarding the 2034 World Cup to Saudi Arabia, FIFA is not just silent. It is complicit. Its decisions give global legitimacy to a regime that allows workers to die without accountability and leaves their children to suffer the consequences. This is not a celebration of sport — it is the sanitisation of abuse.
We hold the Saudi regime fully responsible for these crimes. We also hold FIFA accountable for knowingly enabling them. There is no honour in a tournament built on unpaid wages, dead workers, and child labour.
FIFA must act. It must demand independent investigations into worker deaths. It must compensate families. It must provide educational support to the children left behind. Anything less is betrayal.
